A Risk Managing Citizen-Retired Soldier, He Who Hunted Heads, A hoopy e-learning frood who is also a generative artist/teacher, A PMP'n Migratory Executive, A Running Dog Capitalist/Economist, A CSM who has had a Kipling Experience and an Author/Prop - Yummy as Krispy Kreme and as strong as Dunkin' Donuts Coffee!

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Now THIS makes me Happy!

Hurrah!I read this (thanks to the ever observant Barcepundit, Franco Aleman) and I couldn't help but cheer up. I would like to think that (at least in Parwan, Kapisa and Kabul) my unit's efforts had a little bit to do with this. But in the end, all I care about is that the people in Afghanistan are moving forward.

Girls enduring...um...listening to a speech at the opening of their new school in Aybat Khil

7 Comments:

This post and the previous should be made as one, to contrast the Democrats false perceptions and lies with what can be reality if we have the stick withitness needed to finnish our job in Iraq. You should dig up all the quotes from Dems saying Afghanistan is a failure. In many ways, our presence in Iraq made the success in Afghanistan possible, by forcing the Islamofascists to choose one battlefront over the other. In all battles, the commander must chose which location to fight the battle, or chose not to fight and let the enemy chose the theater of conflict (which would be the failure of the commander, IMO). For better or worse, we chose Iraq. I'ld rather WE chose the place and time of the battle, somewhere over there, rather than wait and do nothing, and again watch our citizens die in the streets of America.

I'll just take what I can get at this point - ABC managed to report it at all, is an improvement. About 6 months into my deployment I sent out a very bitter e-mail to some people at home that I might as well have been posted to the Dark Side of the Moon, rather than Afghanistan. So when I see something like this, it helps.

Ever watch the movie about Meena, a woman from Afghanistan that, right before the war, snuck out of the country because she was teaching girls and the taliban had beat the crud out of her?

It's a true story and it was probably to show how terrible and mean our immigration policies because she had to say "detained" until hearings and was almost deported. But, what I took away from it was the story of the taliban v. women.

I would say that, the fact that nay women are able to read enough to go to continuing education or that it is still considered a viable opportunity for women, is that some brave women kept the dream alive, suffered terrible consequences and sometimes died for the privilege of reading.

There is power in reading.

It's funny how difficult it is to teach children in this country to read or to want to when some would die for the privilege.

Ease of access breeds contempt? The Afghans I worked with had literally fought (w/ the Northern Alliance vs. Talibs) to be able to educate their children - boys and girls. I guess they figured they paid for the right to have their schools in blood, and they appreciated it more. I find myself appreciating a lot more since I came home...